Pop divas pucker up at MTV video music awards

A MILLION men’s fantasies came true after pop divas Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera both shared an open-mouthed kiss with Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards.

The trio stunned a star-studded audience with the passionate embraces after performing a version of Like a Virgin at the New York ceremony.

Spears and Aguilera dressed in white, bustier wedding dresses as a tribute to Madonna's jaw-dropping performance of the hit at the event's inaugural ceremony in 1984.

The veteran star wore a tight black outfit as she stayed on stage to sing her latest hit, Hollywood.

British bands Coldplay and Radiohead were among the winners at the awards.

Coldplay took the Breakthrough Video, Direction and Group Video awards for The Scientist, and Radiohead won the Art Direction accolade for There, There.

Missy Elliott's Work It won two awards, including Video Of The Year, while Justin Timberlake, Coldplay and Beyonce had three apiece. Country legend Johnny Cash, 71, nominated seven times for Hurt, won one.

As usual, the most memorable moments had nothing to do with the trophies.

Eminem, who won one award for best video from a film for Lose Yourself, poked fun at himself and his verbal tussle with a smart-mouthed puppet at last year's awards show.

"I got into this little anger management programme ... and today I stand before you a changed man," said Eminem, on stage with the puppet Ed, from the off-Broadway musical, Avenue Q.

"Working with Ed has taught me that puppets, just like people, have feelings too," Eminem said gently before attacking the puppet for being too talkative.

Fred Durst and Jack Black poked fun at last year's embarrassing moment, when Michael Jackson thought a birthday trophy presented to him was an Artist Of The Millennium award.

"If someone had told me, when I was a kid, that I was going to win the super-genius of the century award, I would have never of believed it," gushed Black, wearing a Jacko-esque outfit.

However, the evening had a potential to be poignant. Cash's haunting Hurt threatened to upstage all the craziness at the Radio City Music Hall extravaganza.

Although Cash had hoped to attend, he was in hospital with a stomach complaint.